beinahe

Advent Calendar 14 – “The almost family”

Hello everyone, and welcome to day 14 of our Advent Calendar. And those of you who love etymology will love today’s topic as we’ll take a quick look at the family of to fast. Because that’s actually pretty crazy. Here’s an overview: fast – capable of  high speed. fast asleep – NOT about falling asleep fast but about  sleeping firmly. to fast  – not eating. to fasten – making tight, your seatbelt on an airplane for instance fast (German) –  almost. That’s quite an epic scope of meanings, right? Hard to believe that they’re all connected but they actually are. The origin of all of them is the super mega hyper ancient Indo-European root *past-, which carried the idea of “firm, solid”. That is pretty much still the core of the verb to fasten. You make your seatbelt firm, if you will. It also helps with the phrase fast asleep. You’re firmly sleeping. And it can even help with to fast in the sense of not eating. You see, back many centuries, the verb to fast was much more general and meant something like “holding, guarding”, which does tie in with the original core idea of solid, tight, firm. People would use this verb also in a context of self control, “fastening … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/beinahe/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a> <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/beinahe/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>